


Split All Ends Up

by poetikat



Series: And Death Shall Have No Dominion [4]
Category: Glee
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetikat/pseuds/poetikat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four months post epilogue, Santana, Dave, and Kurt sleep apart for the first time in months at their psychiatrist's insistence.  It goes as well as one might expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Split All Ends Up

Santana is elbow deep in warm water and soap suds before she works up the nerve to ask Margaret the question that’s been weighing on her mind since lunchtime. “Margaret?”

“Yes?” Margaret asks. She leaves off scrubbing the meat cutting board clean in the other half of the sink and shuts off the tap to better hear Santana.

“You know how we sleep together?” Santana asks. “Kurt and Dave and I, I mean?”

Margaret nods. “It hasn’t escaped my notice,” she says lightly, passing Santana a stack of bowls to wash up.

“Sarah accidentally told Doctor Moreau about it,” Santana says. “And Doctor Moreau told us we need to stop.”

“How do you feel about that?” Margaret asks. Her calm question reminds Santana of her session with their psychiatrist earlier this afternoon. The only difference is that Margaret’s question doesn’t have even the faintest hint of being judgmental.

“I don’t think we should have to,” Santana says. She dunks the bowls into the water with more force than necessary. “It’s none of her business. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Some days Santana wonders why she insisted they all see a shrink. Today is one of those days.

“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” Margaret says. “You would be out in the living room with everyone else if there wasn’t one.”

Santana wipes down the first of the bowls with a soapy sponge and gives it a brief rinse beneath the tap. “Yeah,” she says. “There’s a ‘but.’”

“I’m listening,” Margaret says.

“But what if she’s right?” Santana asks. “What if we can’t ever sleep apart again because we’re not trying? What if we really do need to be more independent?”

It might be true, unwelcome as it is. They eat together, they study together, they garden together, they play games together, they sleep together – when they aren’t doing the same thing, they’re never more than a minute’s brisk walk apart. Santana can’t be in the same room with them without touching one of them, or both of them if she can. If they wanted to, they could finish each other’s sentences. They don’t. They’re more likely to just know what they’d say without talking out loud anyway.

Is it codependency? She hasn’t got a clue. It’s just how they are.

“Are you looking for advice?” Margaret asks. “Or are you just working through this out loud?”

“I’m thinking out loud,” Santana says. “And I want advice. So, both, I guess.” She puts the bowl on the drying rack and takes the meat cutting board from Margaret to rinse it off.

“I think that Doctor Moreau is a very smart person,” Margaret says, and Santana’s heart sinks. “I also think that she underestimates just how much it affected us. She might understand it up here –” Margaret taps the side of her head with a soapy forefinger “– But that doesn’t mean she really gets it.”

“So we should just keep doing what we’ve been doing?” Santana asks.

“If you feel like it’s the best option,” Margaret says. “However, and I say this as a mother and not a substitute therapist, I’m not sure if sleeping together every night is making things better or worse in the long run.”

Santana wipes her hands on her jeans and pulls herself up to sit on the sturdy wood counter. “Puck and Lauren sleep together,” she points out.

“Noah and Lauren are also in a relationship,” Margaret says. Santana opens her mouth to argue, and she clarifies, “A romantic relationship. It doesn’t make your relationship with Kurt and Dave any less important, but it is more…conventional. And before you say anything, they’re both consenting adults.”

“I hate being seventeen,” Santana mutters. There are only three months standing between her and her eighteenth birthday, but it feels like it’s taking forever to get there.

“I remember feeling the same way when I was your age,” Margaret says. “Adulthood just couldn’t come fast enough.”

“No kidding,” Santana says. She picks up the damp dishtowel and fiddles with a corner. “What else do you think?”

“Sarah can usually spend half the week in her own bedroom,” Margaret says, “But she still crawls in bed with me when she has nightmares.”

Santana picks at a worn spot on the fabric. “She’s twelve,” she says. “And she’s doing better than we are.”

“We did our best to shelter her from the worst of it,” Margaret says. “Considering the circumstances, we did a decent job. And Sarah didn’t lose her family the way you three did.”

“I guess,” Santana says. “But what are you getting at? Do you think we should stop or not?”

“You’re doing better than I would have guessed you would,” Margaret tells her. “That’s a point in favor of not changing anything. But on the other hand, you might be using each other as a crutch instead of actually working through all the things you need to deal with.”

“In other words?”

“In other words, talk to Kurt and Dave and make the choice yourselves,” she says. “I’m not going to tell you what to do.”

Santana casts the towel aside and hops off the counter. “You know, a simple yes or no would be a lot better.”

“Life doesn’t work like that,” Margaret says. She gives Santana a light push on her back with a wet hand. “Go talk to them.”

“Going,” Santana says.

She finds Dave in the living room on the other side of the entrance hall playing Mario Kart with Lauren and Puck, Sarah at their feet snuggling with Titus. The half-grown mastiff puppy leaps to his feet to give her an enthusiastic greeting, and she braces herself against his already considerable bulk. “Down,” she orders him, pushing him back firmly. “Good boy.”

Sarah scrambles upright. “I’m sorry,” she says yet again, eyes wide and apologetic. “I’m really sorry.”

“Seriously, it’s okay,” Santana says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“He’s in the library,” Dave says, unprompted.

“Nietzsche again?” Santana asks.

“‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra,’” Dave says. “And maybe ‘Beyond Good and Evil.’”

“I liked him on Sartre better,” Santana says. “So, library?”

Dave pauses the game and stands, tossing the controller to Sarah. “Yeah.”

He leads the way out of the living room and through the study, Santana right behind him and Titus at her heels. They find Kurt entrenched in a large leather armchair by the nearest bookcase, nose buried in an old book and a small stack by his feet.

“Doctor Moreau can go to hell,” Kurt says at their approach, sliding a bookmark between the pages of the open book and shutting it. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s pretty much it,” Santana says. “But we should talk about it anyway.”

“I don’t like it, but yeah, we probably should,” Dave says. He takes a seat in the armchair beside Kurt’s, and Santana perches on the armrest.

Titus sticks an inquisitive nose into the palm of Kurt’s hand. Kurt rolls his eyes and scritches him behind his ears. “Demanding little monster,” he says. “I still don’t like you.”

“Big fat liar,” Santana says.

“I’ll never admit it while he’s within hearing range,” Kurt says. “Anyway. Doctor Moreau can go to hell, we don’t like it, but we’re going to talk about it. We’re all on the same page so far. Let’s talk.”

“Margaret thinks we might be using each other as a crutch so we don’t have to deal with our issues,” Santana says.

“Lauren said ‘Fuck what she thinks,’” Dave says. “But Puck said that she might be on to something.”

“I like Lauren better,” Santana says.

“As much as I hate to admit it, Puck is right,” Kurt says. “What if we’re ever in a situation where we can’t be in the same bed at night, let alone the same room? I’d never be able to get to sleep. Could you?”

“I….” Santana can’t stop herself from reaching out and grabbing Kurt’s thin forearm. “No. I couldn’t. Not at all.”

“Me neither,” Dave says, setting his hand on Santana’s knee. “Ah, fuck. You know, normally I have no problem with you being right. But this kind of pisses me off. Just saying.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to be right about this in the slightest,” Kurt says. “And if we’re talking about normal, I can’t stand the idea of being in my room alone all night, and I know that it’s not normal, and _I don’t care_. The last time I let someone sleep with me – before, I mean – was when Blaine was too drunk to drive home and I wasn’t mad enough at him to make him do it anyway. I didn’t like sharing my space with anyone. But I can’t imagine things being different from how they are now. It scares me. It honestly frightens me.”

They’re talking about before? This is a rarity. Even with them, even with knowing each other inside and out, this is a rarity.

Santana takes a deep breath. “I need you there,” she says. “I need you there so badly. There aren’t enough of us left. We’re either dead or vanished, and I can’t stop thinking that if I take my eyes off you for too long you’re going to disappear, too. When I close my eyes, sometimes I see you drive away from me like Mike and Tina and Rachel did, and I’ll never see you again. Sometimes it feels like I imagined them, and I hate it because they’re as real as we are, and it’s like they really are going to stop existing if I keep thinking about them like that. You’re the most real things in my life. I can’t lose you, too.”

“I need to be there for you,” Dave says. “It’s stupid, but I feel like if something goes wrong and I’m not there, it’s going to be my fault that it wasn’t stopped. Nightmares, panic attacks, insomnia – I _need_ to be there. I promised I’d be there. I promised, and I don’t want to break my promise, not ever. I won’t. No one can make me.”

Kurt turns his head, kisses Santana’s elbow where it hovers by his face. “And yet, we still have that ‘but’ to contend with.”

“God damn it,” Santana sighs. “Yes. We do.”

“Any words of wisdom?” Dave asks, nodding at the book in Kurt’s hands.

“Pick a book,” Kurt says. “There’s an appropriate quote for everything.”

“That one,” Santana says, pointing to the top of the stack.

Kurt picks the book up and flips through the pages. “‘There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.’” He shuts it and sets it aside. “‘Chapter seven of ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra.’”

“Yeah, that’s appropriate,” Dave says. “Also, why’d you leave off Sartre?”

“I’m exploring,” Kurt says, as if that explains everything, and if they were anyone else, it wouldn’t.

But they aren’t anyone else. They’re Santana and Dave, and he’s Kurt, and nobody knows how the zombies happened. Not the doctors, not the scientists, nobody.

He doesn’t want to know how it happened. He wants to know why people live. Not what makes them tick – that’s for psychologists. He wants to know the why of everything. There aren’t concrete answers, and he needs to know if there’s even a purpose for people beyond surviving whatever crap life throws at them.

“Two things,” Santana says. “First off, I read that Sartre book after you finished with it.” Kurt raises an eyebrow fractionally, and she says, “Okay, so Dave translated. But you were better off sticking with the guy who said things like ‘There may be more beautiful times, but’” –

“‘But this one is ours,’” Kurt finishes. “I know. But there are a lot of philosophers out there to work my way through, and it’s a good-sized library.”

“Number two,” Santana says, ignoring Kurt’s counterargument, “You have to start doing things you love again. Like singing. I know you still do sometimes; I’ve heard you.”

“You don’t do things you love either,” Kurt says. “And I sound like a tenor Tom Waits. It’s out of habit, not out of pleasure. I’m checking to see if I’m getting better – I’m not, by the way. I can still carry a tune, and that’s great, it’s a relief, but I have a throat full of gravel when I sing.”

“So we’ll all work on it,” Santana says. “Maybe we need new things to love. But it’s singing. It’s us. It’s always going to be us. Besides, we’d sound way better singing together now than we did before.”

Kurt stares at her for a long moment. Undaunted, Santana stares back. Finally, he shakes his head and says, a smile in his voice, “Only you, Santana. Only you.”

“One of a kind,” Dave agrees, getting out of the armchair and pulling Santana up with him. “Come on. Enough nihilism for one day. Let’s go throw sticks for Titus before it gets too dark.”

“Demanding little monster,” Kurt says again, but he puts his book down and turns off the lamp, following them out of the library with Titus bouncing at his side excitedly.

Santana catches a glimpse of the wall clock in the study as they pass through. Seven o’clock. Four hours left. Four hours until she’s cold and lonely and too far away from her boys.

Four hours.

**

 _Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick._

The second hand of the little clock on the bedside table sounds like a distant gunshot at every tick it makes. Santana stares up at the ceiling, clenching and unclenching her fists in the soft yellow comforter. The darkness of the room, usually so calming, turns her veins to ice. Every black corner is one more razor thin slice of fear through her stomach.

There’s no window above the bed. She’s suffocating. This is not her room, this is not her bed – this is a glorified closet, and she can’t sleep here.

She hasn’t gone so long without seeing them since that day at the crossroads when she cried in Dave’s arms. She hasn’t gone so long without being able to reach out and touch them since Kurt wiped Brittany’s blood off her arms and helped her into a clean jacket.

They aren’t here. She can’t see them. She can’t roll over and bury her face in Kurt’s chest, or throw an arm around Dave to hold him in place to keep him from disappearing.

They can’t disappear. She’s not ready to be alone. She’ll never be ready to be alone. Being alone is wrong, it’s wrong, it’s just _wrong_ , and her throat seizes up and cuts off her breath at the very idea.

Her heart’s going to explode if it pounds any faster. She can’t lose them. They aren’t here. She needs them here. She needs them here now, right now. Right the fuck now.

“Fuck this,” she whispers, and she throws back the covers and stumbles from the bed. Enough is enough.

She pulls the door open and tiptoes out into the hall. It’s as dark here as it is in the room, and she walks down the hall to their bedroom slowly, arms outstretched. Her fingers brush up against something soft, and then something firmer just beneath it. She squints at the moving shadow in front of her, certain it’s her Kurt but terribly, terribly afraid that it’s not.

The shadow catches her hand and holds it close, pressing it against a chest and a rapid heartbeat. “It’s just me,” the shadow says, and Santana flings herself into Kurt’s arms, knocking them both back against the wall with the force of her hug.

“I couldn’t do it,” she says into the hollow of his throat. “I couldn’t. I missed you too much. You weren’t there, and it was fucking awful, and I never want to do it again, and I love you, and you can’t leave, not ever.”

“I won’t,” Kurt says vehemently, his arms holding her against him with surprising strength. “We won’t. Never. I love you. I hated it.”

She pulls away with extreme reluctance, just a few inches, and starts to steer them back down the hall toward their room. “Let’s go back where we belong,” she says.

He keeps an arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders as they shuffle carefully along the hall. “Two a.m.,” he says. “Three hours apart and I couldn’t stand it. She’s right.”

“Fuck her and the prescription bottle she rode in on,” Santana says.

They’re only a foot away from their door when it opens. “Oh, thank fucking god,” Dave says with an explosive sigh of relief, reaching out and grabbing them both to drag them into their room. “I was going crazy.”

Her eyes burn, and she buries her face in Dave’s chest to stave off the tears threatening to fall. “Can we sleep now?” she asks. “Please?”

“Yes,” Kurt says. “Yes, always, anything you want. Anything.”

He and Dave half lead, half carry her to their bed, putting her down in the middle of the mattress gently before getting in themselves. Dave pulls the covers up over them, and Santana shifts and tugs at their arms and shirts until they’re lying exactly how she wants them to: Kurt plastered to her back, arm around her waist and one leg between hers, Dave’s bicep beneath her ear and the underside of his chin pressed against the top of her head.

They’re real like this. They’re here and alive and real, and she can breathe again.

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” Kurt says quietly, and Santana nods.

They’ll try again tomorrow, and end up back here, just like the next night, and the next, and the next. Even when they do finally manage it, sleep will never come as easy alone as it does here.

Still, they have tonight. And no one says they always have to sleep apart.

If they know what’s good for them, no one will.


End file.
